


Wingman

by roguehearted



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Friends Supporting Friends, Friendship, Gen, noctis is the best friend ever, stupid bets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 02:40:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175297
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roguehearted/pseuds/roguehearted
Summary: Tired of Gladio's assertation that he is the ultimate ladies man in the group Noctis and Prompto get dragged into a bet against him. The rules are simple whoever gets the most phone numbers during their night in Lestallum is the winner. With pride and the risk of listening to Gladio be insufferably right for the rest of the trip will they be able to dethrone the self-proclaimed Casanova?





	Wingman

**Author's Note:**

> I need some short and simple happy fun times so here are some short and simple happy fun times. The basic bones of this scenario were suggested and encouraged to me so here you have it.

The conversation had started innocently enough with Gladio expressing his excitement over the decision to head into Lestallum for the night.

“Aren’t you normally encouraging camping?” Prompto asked sounding surprised. He wasn’t going to argue though as he was more than happy to trade sleeping on the ground for a hot shower and an actual bed. Still, it was unusual for Gladio to decline to remind the group that he was perfectly fine with saving the gil and camping out.

“Women in Lestallum are just my type,” Gladio responded leaning back in his seat with a grin. “Real built. Gotta love a girl with some meat on her bones.”

“In all the times we’ve been to Lestallum I haven’t seen you talk to the women once,” Noctis muttered as he rolled his eyes.

Gladio scoffed. “I have. Just because you didn’t see it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.”

Noctis paused considering the statement for a moment. “Iris doesn’t count.”

“I wasn’t talking about Iris, look Noct, the women there can’t get enough of me.” He gave his young charge a smug smile. “That’s true for women everywhere, actually.”

“Sure.”

“You were totally chatting up Sania in Hammerhead, and now when we see her, she doesn’t even acknowledge you. What’s up with that, dude?” Prompto asked ready to challenges Gladio’s bold statement. “Sounds like your flirting isn’t as great as you think.”

Gladio rolled his eyes. “Sania is like me. Married to her job.  And I wasn’t trying to flirt with her when we were talking, so that proves nothing.”

“Isn’t Noct your job?” Prompto leaned over his seat grinning at his friend.

“I wanna divorce.”

“The point is,” Gladio interjected loudly shooting Noctis a look for his comment. “I bet the two of you know nothing about the courtship of the fairer sex.”

“That fact that you refer to it like that makes me think you don’t know anything about it either,” Noctis muttered into his hand.

“You wanna run that one by me again?” Gladio asked leaning closer into Noctis’s side of the car.

Noctis cut his eyes over at Gladio taking a quick chance to weigh his options. As tempting as it was to tell Gladio he thought that his flirting style would only work on extremely bored with their current relationship housewives he decided against it. Muttering a quick ‘no,' he looked back at the scenery as Lestallum started to appear in the distance. 

“We’ll take that bet!” Prompto grinned. He was practically in the backseat now for as far as he was leaning. “Won’t we, Noct?”

Noctis suddenly became more alert tearing a lazy gaze away from the outside of the car to give his friend a startled look. “What? What bet?”

“Noct and I could probably pick up more girls than you. No problem.” Prompto continued on as if he hadn’t even heard Noctis’s panicked question.

If Gladio weren't sitting right next to him in full view, Noctis would probably be making exaggerated hand signals telling Prompto to put a halt to this discussion. Instead, he settled for exchanging a pleading look with Ignis in the rearview mirror.

Ignis said nothing.

What an ass.

“Doubt it. I’ve seen you ‘talk’ to Cindy,” Gladio was wearing a smug grin as he put finger quotes around the words talk. “And the only girl Noct can communicate with requires the use of dog and a notebook.”

Noctis shot a glare in Gladio’s direction. Suddenly this didn’t sound like such a bad idea anymore. He could talk to other girl’s just fine thank you very much. Cindy had his phone number and contacted them regularly. He had hung out with Iris all day the last time they were in Lestallum. He matched wits with Aranea, and for the record, Sania mostly spoke to him now when they met up.

Then there was also Monica he talked to her, and in spite of her teasing having thrown him off guard briefly he still checked in with Coctura when they were in the Galdin area.

Noctis was pretty sure that cat that followed them around was a female too.

“Fine, what’s the bet?” Noctis asked giving Gladio the longest coldest stare he could muster.

Gladio appeared to be mulling over the question before snapping his fingers. “When we get to Lestallum split up. Whoever can get the most numbers from the girls there will be the winner.”

“What do we win?” Prompto asked renewed interest in this bet.

“Bragging rights?” Gladio offered.

Next, to him, Noctis made a dismissive noise. “I thought this was going to be interesting.”

“Does it matter? You’re not going to win anyway. Bragging rights is enough of a prize for me.” Gladio said giving Noctis a nudge.

“That just means when you lose you’re not going to be able to brag anymore.” Noctis attempt to scoot further away from him but the larger man had an impressive wingspan. It didn’t matter how far Noctis tried to press himself up against his side of the seat he wasn’t going to be out of Gladio’s reach.

“How do we know you’re not just going to make up names and phone numbers?” Prompto spoke up now. He had his doubts about various stories Gladio had told him in the past concerning his prowess with women. Thus Prompto wasn’t one hundred percent sure they could trust Gladio to play fair.

“The girls will either have to write down their number themselves and give it to you or text it to your phone. That’s how we’ll know it’s real.” Gladio looked between the two of them now. “Besides if anyone is likely to cheat it’s you two.”

Prompto made a face before settling back into his seat facing forward. “Pretty sure your flirting methods will only work if you’re a vampire.” He muttered referencing one of the books Gladio had been reading since they left Insomnia. 

“Or if you were one of those burly outdoorsy guys who never…..” Noctis trailed off his eyes widening as he looked Gladio over a moment of clarity coming across his features. Even in the front seats, Prompto and Ignis’s eyes began to widen. “Never wears a shirt oh Gods you modeled yourself after a crappy romance hero!” Noctis finished up looking at his Shield in disbelief.

“Maybe they modeled their characters after me.”

Noctis just had his head buried in his hands muttering to himself and shaking his head. “I’m going to need you to wear a shirt for the rest of the trip.”

 

___________________

 

The sun had just started to set behind the horizon when they pulled into Lestallum. Prompto barely waited for the car to come to a complete stop before jumping out in excitement.

“You getting in on this bet, Ig?” Gladio asked shutting his door. “Could use some real competition.”

Ignis sighed. He had been perfectly content to be left out of the conversation the whole ride in. “I believe I’ll be sitting this one out.” This one and all future competitions they came up with if he could help it. “I shall be waiting back at the hotel whenever you’re done.”

“Oh I’ll give you competition,” Noctis said leaning against the car a small smirk playing at the corner of his mouth. “And I’ll do it with my shirt on.”

“Wouldn’t want anyone to see your scrawny body,” Gladio smirked back. “So, what say we tally up the numbers before we leave tomorrow? Any number you get between then and now is free game.”

“Sure, whatever.” Noctis shrugged.

“Good luck you’re gonna need it,” Gladio responded heading up the steps towards the Cup Noodle truck. Prompto already hot on his heels taking the steps two at a time.

Noctis resigned himself with a shrug throwing an arm around Ignis as the two of them head in the direction of the hotel. “You sure you don’t want to participate, Specs? Pretty sure you could beat him.” The real victory here, as far as Noctis saw it, wasn’t so much a personal one but being able to shut Gladio up for the rest of the trip.

“I have no wish to participate in your childish contest,” Ignis muttered neglecting to mention that if he had truly thought this through he would have worked to prevent it from happening in the first place.

“Yeah, well,” Noctis said letting his arm drop as the two of them start to break off at the fountain. “If you run into anyone go ahead and have em text me their number.”

“I am not going to help you cheat,” Ignis sputtered in disbelief.

“It’s not cheating,” Noctis said walking backward towards the market area with a grin on his face. “You’re my advisor you're supposed to connect me to people. So you know, get connecting.”

 

___________________

 

About an hour into the bet Noctis was starting to find the entire thing a bit creepy. To achieve the maximum numbers possible, he couldn’t spend too much time on a single girl. Which wasn’t that huge of a problem, but talking to a girl only to get her phone number and run off was making Noctis feel pretty sleazy.

For that past couple of groups of girls, he had remedied the situation by straight up telling them that he was attempting to win a bet against his annoying ass friend and he needed their phone numbers. They hadn’t established any rules against telling them it was a bet and the honest approach had done wonders to ease Noctis’s conscience.

Bonus points came from the fact that one of the girl's eyes lit up in realization. Apparently, Gladio had approached her earlier, and she thought his flirtations were some bizarre street performance.

Noctis made sure to take a selfie with her for good measure.

He had gathered about eleven numbers at this point and was feeling pretty confident in his odds of winning that he decided to take a quick break and hit up one of the street vendors and pick up dinner. If the street vendor was female, he could grab her number too.

Finishing up paying for his food with number twelve written on a napkin his attention was drawn to Prompto stammering his way through a conversation with two girls nearby.

He froze watching the scene play out before him for a moment. Prompto was clearly struggling, and both girls were looking at him as if he was crazy. Noctis cringed cursing himself for not realizing that this was gong to happen.

It was Cindy on the hill over Hammerhead all over again.

Making a snap decision, Noctis hustled over and threw a friendly arm over his friend’s shoulder. “Did you ask them yet?”

Prompto ducked his head instantly clamming up when Noctis approached. Defeat was written all over his face indicating he had now accepted the fact that Noctis was going to score these two numbers instead.

“Ask us what?” The darker haired girl asked cutting a wary glance from Prompto to Noctis now.

“Dude, I can’t believe you haven’t asked them yet.” Noctis gave Prompto a friendly jostle while the latter peered back up at him his expression more inquisitive than defeated now. “We just got back for taking some pictures for that publishing guy down by the lookout, but we wanted to purpose a piece of our own. Prompto here was supposed to be seeing if there were some good nightlife places here we could take pictures of. Isn’t that right, Prompto?”

Prompto swallowed thickly. His eyes still on Noctis as he tried to figure out what his friend was playing at. The two girls, however, looked intrigued.

“You take pictures?” The short haired blonde girl asked looking at Prompto with renewed curiosity. “Can we see them?”

“Uh, sure.” Prompto untangled himself from Noctis as he handed the girl the camera standing beside her now explaining how to move through the pictures that were saved on the memory card. He glanced up again to meet Noctis’s gaze again.

Noctis crossed his arms over and offered his friend an encouraging smile.

“You took a selfie with a Coeurl?” The dark haired gasped at Prompto in surprise. “Steph here ran into one about a week ago checking the towers. She was trapped up there for like two hours before it finally left.”

Steph nudged her friend frowning as she continued through the pictures. “These are seriously amazing though. You said you wanted to take some in Lestallum?”

“Just for fun,” Prompto responded with a quick glance back to Noctis. It would appear that he too had been uncomfortable flat out lying.

“We were just needing someone to help us find the best places to hang out here,” Noctis added giving his friend a quick nod.

Steph gave a thoughtful hum as she glanced at her friend. “What do you think, Ami? We could bring em with us.”

“Yeah?” Noctis asked. “Where are you heading?”

“Oh it’s kind of a super secret after work hangout for the girls who work at the power plant,” Steph responded with a wink. “So you can’t go publishing these pics.”

“You should give him your numbers so he can send the pictures to you later,” Noctis suggested watching as Prompto’s eyes momentarily became large and panicked.

Noctis just grinned. Like hell was he going to allow his friend to suffer a humiliating defeat on a stupid bet to Gladio. And really who better to beat Gladio than Prompto?

Steph produced a pen from her bag grabbing Prompto by the hand scrawling her name followed by her number with a doodled heart. “So next time I’m cornered by a Coeurl I can totally call you, right?”

“Y-Yeah!” Prompto stammered out staring down at the loopy handwriting written down in purple pen on his hand.

“I totally wanna see those pictures too.” She added as Prompto nodded along dumbly.

Ami leaned over as well a scrap of paper between her fingers. “Same here. Especially if you take some tonight.” She said.

“Of course!” Prompto was starting to appear less withdrawn now. The interest and praise for his hobby slowly allowing the threads of nervousness unwrap. “Just show us where the party is at.”

___________________

 

Prompto kept stealing sideways glances as they waited outside the worn down little building that served as the afterhours hangout for the women of Exteneris. Steph and Ami had head inside to let the properitor know they were bringing too outsiders.

Noctis’s help wasn’t unappreciated, but Prompto couldn’t help but wonder why his friend had handed him two free numbers when he could have just easily stolen them for himself.

He could have had them ridciously easy if Prompto had been reading the situation correctly. Before Noctis arrived, the two girls were looking for an excuse to get away as fast as possible.

“Don’t...Don’t you need numbers for the bet too?” He asked his questiong cautiously almost afraid to remind Noctis that they were techinically competeing against each other in this.

“I’ve got some,” Noctis responded with a shrug.

“Right,” Prompto was still a bit perplexed but decided not to question it further as Steph popped her head back out of the doorway.

“Oh good you’re still here,” She said opening the door wider now to permit them both entry. “You’re going to have to share that Coeurl pic with the rest of the girls in here. They don’t believe you could snap one and not be ripped to shreds.”

“He almost was,” Noctis muttered under breath. He was all for boosting his friend’s confidence, but he was a little wary at the encouragement of his friend’s questionable battle tactics.

Noctis squinted a moment letting his eyes adjust to the dim lighting in the establishment. There were a various groups of girls huddled around tables swaping stories, arm wrestling or gathered around the bar ordering rounds of drinks.

Steph immediately grabbed Prompto by the arm leading him over to one of the closer tables who were evidentally awaiting their arrival. Noctis settled himself close by watching as Prompto’s stance was hesitant at first, but when the other girls appeared receptive of his photos, he noticed how the tension appeared to melt away from Prompto’s shoulders.

His gestures becoming exaggerated as he told the story behind certain photos. As the night wore on other groups of girls wandered over pulling up chairs to share in the excitement. Noctis couldn’t help but smile as Prompto was practically bouncing on his heels taking selfies and group shots with the girls and then excitedly turning the camera around to let them see the results.

It was instances like this where he love watching his friend flourish.

 

___________________

 

Noctis realized he must have fallen asleep at some point because Prompto woke him up by shaking his knee. “Noct, come on we gotta get going. They’re closing up.”

He blinked the sleep from his eyes in time to see Prompto waving goodbye to Steph and the group of friends she was leaving with. “Was that?” Noctis asked trying to recall the last few hours but coming up blank.

“Dude, how do you fall asleep in a bar?” Prompto chuckled.

Right. That’s where he was. Noctis stretched and gave Prompto a half grin as more girl’s waved goodbye to him as they left. “So how many numbers did you get?”

“Oh man! So many!” He said pulling up the text messages on his phone for Nocits to see. “And they actually wanted to give them to me! They want me to send them all the pictures I took tonight. Some of them even want me to send any cools ones I take outside of Lestallum.” He said scrolling fondly through the phone.

Noctis gave his friend a fond smile as he got to his feet. “Well, we should probably head in for the night then.” Ignis was tired of their nonsense hours ago and the later they stayed out, the more irritated with them he would become. Especially if they intended to get an early start in the morning.

 

___________________

“Looks like we’re both tied at twenty-two,” Gladio muttered staring down the results. His tone made it clear he wasn’t happy with this outcome. Ties were annoying. He liked to have a clear winner. “I mean at least we have a clear loser here.” He flashed Noctis a smug smile.

Noctis didn’t respond. His eyes were on Prompto who was gleefully responding to a text he had just got with a rather large smile plastered on his face.

He gave a half-hearted shrug. He was engaged, wasn’t he? Technically he should be the true winner here. He shifted his attention squinting at Prompto’s hand as the other clicked away at the keyboard on his phone typing out a response.

“Twenty-three,” Noctis said breaking out into a larger grin.

“You had twelve, Noct.” Gladio scoffed.

“No, but Prompto has twenty-three,” He said grabbing his friend’s wrist and showing Gladio the slowly fading number scribbled on the back of Prompto’s hand. “Which is enough to make one winner and _two_ clear losers.”

Prompto’s eyes widened a bit. He had added Steph’s number himself to send pictures earlier, so it hadn’t been on any of the napkins or text messages that he submitted for counting for the bet.

“No way,” Gladio looked at it checking it against the other names and numbers apparently hoping it was a duplicate. “Well, I’ll be damned looks like he is the winner.”

“I won?” Prompto asked looking back at Noctis in disbelief.

Noctis nodded in response as Prompto’s energy became contagious.

“So anytime Gladio starts running his mouth? All I have to do is say twenty-three, and he’s gotta shut up?” He asked eyes darting between Gladio and Noctis.

“The rights to bragging are yours,” Noctis affirmed.

Gladio let out a defeated sigh giving Prompto a scurtinzing gaze. “I just don’t know how he did it.”

Prompto jumped over holding out the camera as he slung an arm around his friend’s shoulder readying himself to snap a picture. “Victory selfie,” He adjusted the camera a big. “Gotta make sure we get Gladio moping in the background.”

Saving the picture to his camera Prompto fiddled with the device a moment. “Hey Noct,” He said meeting his friend’s eyes. “Thanks.” He was well aware that without Noctis’s help and push he would have ended the night in disaster.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Noctis said waving his hand dismissively. “The person they were interested in and wanted to talk to was you. I just introduced them is all.” If the outcome and the events of the night before had made his friend this happy and confident in himself, Noctis could hardly feel like a loser here.


End file.
